1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for guiding the believer to prayer.
More specifically, it relates to an apparatus for guiding the saying and meditation of the rosary.
2. Description of the Related Art
As is known, the rosary is a prayer in the honour of the Virgin Mary and consists in saying a hundred and fifty Hail Mary, divided in fifteen tens, intercalated with the saying of the Lord's Prayer and the Gloria. At each ten, one keeps meditating on one of the fifteen Mysteries of Redemption which consist in events of Gospel history and are divided in three series regarding Jesus' and Mary's Joy (Joyful Mysteries), Sorrow (Sorrowful Mysteries) and Gloria (Glorious Mysteries).
The Joyful Mysteries are the Annunciation, the Visitation, Jesus' birth, the Virgin's Purification, and Jesus's finding among the Scribes. The Sorrowful Mysteries are the Agony, the Flagellation, the Crowning with thorns, the Trip to the Calvary, the Crucifixion and death. The Glorious Mysteries are Jesus' Resurrection, the Ascension to Heaven, the descent of the Holy Ghost, Mary's Assumption, and her Crowning.
The essence and the merit of this prayer are in joining mental prayer and vocal prayer together.
As far back as antiquity and in the most disparate cultures, besides prayer books, means for assisting the believer in the prayer are known. For instance there are plates bearing series of images, each one associated with a different step of a prayer.
In the saying of the Rosary, due to its complexity relative to other prayers, a means was created and is still commonly used to the present day--particularly portable for the personal use in any place--for counting the Hail Mary and the Lord's Prayer, made up of a crown chain wherein groups of ten beads which serve for the Hail Mary, are fixed, each one intercalated with a large bead or major grain, which serves for the Lord's Prayer.
This crown is itself named a rosary for metonymy. It represents, with its grains, the third part of the rosary, the saying of three Hail Mary corresponding with each grain. The rosary in a reduced form can also be said limitedly to such a third part, it also is commonly named a rosary, in which case a single Hail Mary corresponds with each grain.
The crown rosary such as known heretofore, however, has the disadvantage of reminding the believer of the various steps of the prayer in an only vague manner.